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Lion City runs out of excuses for secrecy

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Why you can trust SCMP

SECRECY FOR SECRECY'S sake? The retention of information is a defining characteristic of big-brother bureaucracies and know-better elitists everywhere. Favourite excuses for crimping public view of economic data include national security and the public interest. More often, these mask inefficiency and outright coercion.

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Socialist states were heavily information retentive and paid the price in economic efficiency, as poor-performing companies are reliable cover-up merchants. But drawing a line between public interest and data voyeurism is no easy task.

Singapore, a capitalist metropolis in socialist drag, offers an interesting case in point. Recently, it chose to loosen up and go with the market-economy flow. That has seen public utilities partially privatised, regulation loosened and less moral hectoring by a government wanting to encourage a free-thinking, 'knowledge-based' future.

This has not been easy. High-cost Singapore is heavily exposed to the global electronics slump and is seeing foreign companies exit to cheaper locations. This cyclical downturn has hit economic growth hard and, arguably, portends a deeper malaise in the city's statist development track. The general public suspects trouble ahead and is politely asking for greater economic transparency. The official response last week was a resolute refusal.

Central to Singapore's planned economy is the state's ability to capture an astonishingly high share of private-sector savings, which are invested by government agencies such as the Government Investment Corporation (GIC). These surpluses are the result of taxation, forced social-security payments and sterilised foreign-exchange reserves.

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In recent weeks, Singapore's letter-to-the-editor writers have called for greater transparency in GIC's holdings and performance. In response to an opposition parliamentarian's calls to open the books, Lee Hsien Loong, the Deputy Prime Minister and chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, fired back: 'It [the Government] does not stand up and say, 'Here are all the things; here are all the data; here are my national secrets; here are my defence secrets; here are my foreign-policy moves; and here are my innermost reserves'.'

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